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String-beans

A stew of string beans and pork, simmered until tender and seasoned with salt, pepper, and optional cream, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

String-beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove all the strings from the beans and break them into two or three pieces.

  2. Soak the beans in cold water for a while.

Cook

  1. Combine the beans and pork in a pot.

  2. Cover the mixture with boiling water.

  3. Cook for four hours, or longer if the beans are tough.

  4. Stew the beans down well before serving.

  5. Add salt at the end as needed to avoid over-salting.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain the beans, if desired.

  2. Place the drained beans in a saucepan.

  3. Add cream to the beans.

  4. Add butter to the beans.

  5. Add flour to the beans.

  6. Add pepper to the beans.

  7. Stew for a few moments.

  8. Serve very hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

String beans
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, stewed texture during long cooking.
Pork
Adds savory meaty flavor to the cooking liquid as it simmers with the beans.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the stewed beans, mellowing the overall texture.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the finished beans a rounder, richer flavor and smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid slightly so the beans take on a light body.

The step that matters

Stew the beans down well before serving. Beans need long, gentle simmering to break down their tough cell walls fully; stopping early leaves them fibrous and starchy-tasting, and the pork's flavor only fully infuses with extended cooking.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, cream, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, cream, butter, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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